Hide and Seek
by skybound2
Summary: During some downtime on the Normandy SR1, Shepard seeks refuge with a friend. -Just a little friendship/humor piece between F!Shepard and Garrus.


**Title:** Hide and Seek  
**Author:** skybound2  
**Rating:** K  
**Characters:** F!Shepard, Garrus, and Liara  
**Word Count:** ~2800  
**Summary:** During some downtime on the Normandy SR1, Shepard seeks refuge with a friend.  
**Author's Note:** This started out life as an all dialogue fic, but I decided it deserved a tiny bit more depth than that, and this is the end result. A bit pre-ship for F!Shepard and Garrus, but mostly just focuses on the friendship aspect. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

**Hide and Seek**

* * *

"Hide me."

Up until that moment, it had been a typical day for one Garrus Vakarian aboard the _SSV Normandy._ But the sight of his Commanding Officer's head hanging over the side of the vehicle he's working under, that strange soft fringe of hers flopping in her face as she looks at him from her upside down position, tells him that his typical day is about to become anything but.

"Commander?"

She flips down over the side of the Mako...backwards, to land on her feet by his knees. He can't help but gape at the very open display of her flexibility, luckily, she's too busy darting her eyes around the cargo hold - giving her the uncharacteristic look of prey - to notice his expression.

"I need a place to hide out for a while, and I'm tagging _you_ as my accomplice. Now move over."

"What? Why are you hiding? This is your ship-" She doesn't wait for him to finish, simply taps his thigh with her foot before dropping onto her back by his side and...shimming (there is really no other word for it) all the way under the Mako, until her feet have disappeared.

And he's gaping. Again.

After he manages to get his jaw working, he grabs hold of the bottom of the Mako, and slides himself back under (a much easier task for him on the wheeled cot, then it had been for her without one) to find his CO, legs tucked up towards her chest and her own mouth hanging open in surprise as she stares at the undercarriage of the vehicle. Or what remains of it, at least.

"What the hell happened here?"

Garrus can't not laugh at her shell-shocked expression and affronted tone. He stops abruptly at her narrow-eyed glare, coughing into his fist. "Umm, hmm..._you_ did, Commander."

Her eyes go wide, and she glances back briefly at the carnage above her head. "Me?"

He sighs, bracing for impact much as he had the day before. "You remember yesterday when we got stuck on that cliff face?"

She pokes a finger into one of the jagged holes left behind by the aforementioned cliff and jiggles around a loose wire. "Yeah..."

"And then you decided that the best method to get us _unstuck_ was to fire a rocket at the cliff?"

"Worked didn't it?"

"And _then _we landed on that boulder by the base of the mountain?"

"...Maybe."

Garrus gestures to the hole that she'd been examining. "Well _that_ was the end result."

"What kind of a tank gets a hole in it from landing on a little rock?"

And there Garrus goes again, with the gaping. In his mind, he recalls the feeling of vertigo as the Mako had tumbled end over end off the side of the cliff, before proceeding to free-fall to the ground and landing onto a jagged 'rock' the size of a small island. It had taken them almost an hour (and all of their omnigel) to dismount from the unintended perch and hobble their way to the pick up zone. His gullet still hasn't fully settled. "I'm...not even sure how to respond to that, Commander."

"Well, it's not like it _normally_ looks this bad after an excursion, right?"

He manages to not gape, but only barely. "No. Sometimes the damage is so severe that entire segments have to be removed in order to complete the repairs. Like that time after the Luna base? The whole front end had to be retrofitted. This is mild in comparison."

"Oh. Um. Sorry, I guess." She reaches up to scratch at the loose fringe on her head, ruffling it, her lips turning down in what he thinks may be confusion. "Is my driving really that bad?"

"I'm not going to answer that, Commander."

"So that's a yes."

"No comment."

She huffs, the air blowing the loose fringe out of her face. "Are you the only one that works on it?"

He shrugs, his shoulders bumping against hers in the tight space. "Not always, but yeah, most of the time it's just me. I don't have as many duties as the Alliance officers on board, so this keeps me busy at least." He reaches for one of his tools and sets to work on a loose coupling, If he's under here, he might as well get some work done. "What did you _think_ would happen when you drove the thing off a cliff?"

"I don't know. I mean, it's a tank! Tanks are supposed to be, well, _tanks_."

"Even tanks have their limits, Commander."

"Apparently."

Several minutes tick on by with Garrus working on the repairs and the Commander just watching in companionable silence, before Garrus' mouth gets the better of him and starts spouting out words without his say so. "So...as much as I don't mind the company, are you planning to tell me why you're hiding out under here? You must have more important things to do."

"No, not really. Filed all of my reports for the assignment we completed yesterday, and Joker has us en route to retrieve Wrex's family heirloom. ETA is around thirteen hours, give or take. I'm free until then, figured I might as well enjoy my downtime with a friend." She spreads her hands out in as wide of a gesture as she can manage, given the space. "And since you don't take downtime I figured I'd come to you."

"Uh-huh"

"What?"

He gives her a dubious look. "Even if I believed that - which I don't - that still doesn't explain why you said you needed a place to hide."

"I don't suppose that you'd be willing to forget I said that in exchange for the promise to never drive the Mako off a cliff again, would you?"

"Hmm, tempting, but no."

"No?"

"Let's just say I'm a bit skeptical that you'd keep your end of the bargain on that one."

She reaches up, grasping at her chest and blinking her eyes in a strange, repetitive fashion. The whole effect is just...odd. "You wound me, Garrus! Where's the trust?"

"Buried under a mountain of rubble at the bottom of a cliff."

She bares her flat rows of teeth in a rare wide smile and bumps her shoulder against his. "You're lucky I like you, Garrus."

He grins back. "I know."

Garrus lets the matter drop and goes back to working on the repairs. In his periphery he can see Shepard fiddling with the loose wires hanging above her head, a far off look on her face.

He has to admit, in a strange way, having her there with him is kind of nice. He spends so many hours working alone, that he forgot how calming it can be just having another person nearby.

He moves on from the coupling to a particularly gnarly set of wires when he hears her sigh. "Fine. I'm hiding."

He keeps his attention on this work, not wanting to scare her off. "From?"

"The Lieutenant for starters. He's been...chatty today. Everytime I turn around, he's there. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice enough guy and all, but..."

"You're not interested."

"Exactly. And there's only so many ways I can sidestep him before it starts to feel like I'm kicking a puppy. Then there's Liara. She's been giving me these looks? And I can't tell if they are of the 'I'd like to cut into your brain and see what makes you tick' or the 'I want to rip your clothes off and have my wicked way with you' variety."

He doesn't gape. Really, he doesn't. He also doesn't have to self-censor his brain to stop the images she just conjured up from playing on a repeated loop. Honest.

"And frankly? I'm not into either option, so...here I am!"

"Yeah...right."

"You don't believe me?"

"No. This time, I believe you."

"So what's with the look?"

"What look?"

"That look right there. Your mandibles are pinched tight to your face, and your eye-ridge...things are kind of angled in." She tilts her head to the side, her loose fringe falling across one eye. "Makes you look a little constipated, if I'm honest."

He laughs, relaxing his facial features into something that he _hopes _is a little less pinched. "There. That better?"

"Much. Still doesn't explain why you gave me that look to begin with."

"I suppose not."

"You planning to tell me?"

"No."

She bumps her shoulder into his again, rocking them both and making him drop his spanner. "Come on, Garrus. I told you. Fair's fair."

He lifts one of those same eye ridges at her, but gives in to her request. "I guess I'm just confused. If you aren't interested in the Lieutenant or Liara, why don't you just tell them that, instead of hiding under here with me?"

"I've _tried_, but I'm not any good with that sort of thing. Put a gun in my hand and tell me what direction to shoot? Done. Tag me to play Spectres and send me off to take down a rogue one? No problem. But relationship stuff..." Garrus watches her shake her head, puffing out her cheeks and then releasing a breath of air before turning her head to meet his gaze. "Trips me up every time."

"Hmm. I guess I can understand that."

She gives him an assessing look that makes him have to fight the urge to fidget. "Can you?"

"I'm not the most well-versed in personal relationships either, Commander. The turian military doesn't leave you a lot of time for anything outside of casual affairs."

"And C-Sec?"

He laughs at that, shaking his head. "If anything, C-Sec is worse. At least the turian military has an almost even split of males and females. You may not have noticed, Commander, but there aren't a lot of turian woman who make their home on the Citadel. The few that do come through the ports are usually part of the military, and don't stay for long."

"I had noticed that. I always wondered why."

"Personal preference mostly. There were a few women that worked at C-Sec while I was there, but they were all bonded."

"Okay, fine. What about asari? Seems like everyone in this galaxy has a thing for them, and there are certainly plenty of them to be found on the Citadel."

"They are - hmm - I don't - well, I never really thought about - I'm not -"

One corner of her mouth pulls up in a half-smile that Garrus can only label has mischievous. "Never considered cross-species relations, Officer Vakarian?"

His mandibles droop a bit, embarrassed. The words that he blurts out next as much as a defense mechanism as a diversionary tactic. "Have you?"

His breath catches in his throat as Shepard - in a very deliberate motion - looks him up and down, that same little half-smile on her face. "Once or twice."

Garrus gapes. Again. Mandibles fluttering against the side of his face in absolute surprise. He flounders, unable to string words together in order to form a coherent response. "Uhh..."

The smile slips from her face, something like concern flickering across it, the air between them growing thick with tension that snaps in half with her sudden, forced laughter. "God, Garrus. You should see the _look_ on your face right now! I was only jok-"

The sound of the elevator doors opening cuts her off, her eyes going wide for a second before she tucks her legs - which had relaxed during the course of their conversation - back up to her chest. She puts one finger to her mouth against her lips and shakes her head. "Whoever it is, I'm not here." Her whispered words manage to come across more as a request than an order.

He nods, still too in shock from the implication from moments before - even if it _was_just a joke - to say anything, let alone have fun at her expense. He blindly grabs at the wires above his head in an effort to seem busy, though he knows he's just making the tangle up worse. At least the racket he's making will fool whoever just entered the cargo bay into thinking he's actually doing his job. The gentle patter of footfalls heading their way from the elevator tells him who their visitor is even before he hears her voice.

"Excuse me, Garrus, but do you have a moment?"

He sees Shepard's eyes go even wider, and a new color rises to her cheeks as she shakes her head once, very definitively, in a negative response. The need to put some distance between them, however, wins out.

"Sure, Liara. Just give me a second." Garrus feels a bit of triumph when Shepard's mouth gapes open for a change, but that triumph is short lived when she breathes out a word that sounds like 'traitor.' He makes sure that her eyes are locked on his before he whispers out a very quiet 'trust me.' She nods once, mouth pulled in a thin line, and waves him off. Feeling more reluctant than he thinks he probably should, he wheels himself out from under the Mako to see Liara standing by the side of the vehicle, chewing on her lower lip. "What do you need, Liara?"

"Have you seen the Commander anywhere."

"...I haven't. Sorry."

"Oh. That's okay." Despite her assurance, the expression on her face seems to fall. Shoulders slumping for a moment. "It's so strange, I've looked for her all over the ship, but I can't seem to find her anywhere."

"Maybe she's hiding." The second the words are out of his mouth his whole body jolts forward from a kick to the top of his cart from said hiding Commander.

Liara looks down at him with confusion. "Are you alright?"

"Uhh, yeah. Just a...muscle spasm."

"Okay... why would you say that?"

"That I had a muscle spasm?"

"No, that she's hiding?"

Garrus shrugs, trying for nonchalant. Not an easy task lying down the way that he is - cowl supported by the curve of the cot. "Just that she's got a lot on her plate, I can't imagine it's easy for her to get downtime when she needs it. She's probably holed up somewhere, just trying to relax where none of the crew can find her."

"You think so?"

"Definitely. She'll come out when she's ready."

She breathes out a long sigh of air, body relaxing visibly as she does so. "Maybe you're right."

When she doesn't say anything else, he starts to slide back under the Mako, only to have his attention pulled back by up Liara.

"Would you...if you happen to see her, would you tell her that I'm looking for her?"

He pauses for a moment, considering the hopeful look on her face and the flushed color of her cheeks, and then nods. "I think I can do that."

"Thank you, Garrus."

"Anytime, Liara."

This time he waits until she's moved entirely from his line of vision, and he hears the elevator doors open and shut, before sliding back under the Mako. Fully ensconced in the space once more, he waits for the Commander to speak. When she does, her voice is smaller than he is use to hearing it, subdued. "I appreciate you not telling her where I am."

He watches her for a moment, the play by play of unreadable emotions on her face, the still somewhat colorful looking cheeks. The frown. It makes something indefinable twist in his gut. "It was nothing. Besides, it was as much for my benefit as it was for yours."

"Oh yeah? And why is that?"

"Shepard, if you happen to eat lunch at the same time as Alenko, the whole crew hears about it within the hour. Now here you are, hiding under a tank. _With me_. This crew latches onto rumors like varrens to a sack of meat, just imagine what they'd have to say about this. I'd never hear the end of it."

She laughs loud and long, and the indefinable thing in his stomach loosens just a little. "See, I knew I choose right when I picked you to be my accomplice. Much more subtle than Wrex."

"Yeah yeah. Glad to know that I win out over a krogan. Now, if you're planning on staying under here for much longer, make yourself useful and hand me that wrench."

She rocks into his shoulder once again, and he can't stop his smile in response. "Don't go getting pushy there, Vakarian."

She still hands him the wrench though.

~End


End file.
